Large scale projects, commenced in the years of independence under the
leadership of the First President of the Republic of Uzbekistan Islam Karimov,
are steadily continuing in the regions. Thanks to huge creative works, the
appearance of cities and villages have cardinally transformed, the economic
potential has grown significantly, the welfare of the population has increased,
and all these achievements can be vividly seen in the example of the northern
region of Uzbekistan.

Acting President of the Republic of
Uzbekistan, Prime Minister Shavkat Mirziyoyev visited the Republic of
Karakalpakstan and Khorezm region on 28 September 2016 to review the pace of
social-economic reforms, wide-scale works in industry, agriculture and a social
sphere.

Shavkat Mirziyoyev visited the
Takhiatash thermal power station, where he surveyed the implementation of a
large-scale investment project in accordance with the resolution of the First
President of the Republic of Uzbekistan Islam Karimov “On measures to implement
investment project “Construction of two steam-gas plants with a capacity of
230-280 MW at the Takhiatash thermal power station”, issued on 18 June 2015.

This thermal power station,
consisting of five power blocks with a total capacity of 730 MW, is a main
source of electricity for consumers in the Republic of Karakalpakstan and
Khorezm region. The station annually produces 3,2 bln. KW/hours of electric
power, for which purpose 1,15 bln. cubic meters of natural gas is burned.

The implementation of the new
investment project allows saving significant volumes of natural gas, but also
increasing the production of electricity, the demand for which has been growing
steadily. In particular, the consumption will be lowered by 488 mln. cubic
meters of natural gas while the power generation capacity will increase by
230-280 MW.

After completion of planned works,
the total capacity of the Takhiatash station will increase by 930 MW, while the
annual production will exceed 3,3 bln. KW/h.

Afterwards, Shavkat Mirziyoyev
reviewed the general plan of Nukus city. During the conversation, a special
attention was paid to the issues of building modern high-rise residential
houses, recreation places, artificial lakes and ponds. Further widening the
scope of works on creating worthy conditions for comfortable life of people
should be on the spotlight.

A meeting with representatives of
the Republic of Karakalpakstan was held, at the start of which the participants
paid a tribute to the memory of the First President of the Republic of Uzbekistan
Islam Karimov.

Wide-scale reforms, carried out in
the years of independence under the leadership of the First President, in this
region of our country, were underlined at the meeting. The special attention to
social-economic development, increasing the welfare of population in the Aral
Sea region has been yielding high results.

The tasks on increasing the export
potential of the region, organization of cotton harvesting and sowing of winter
crops, preparing social facilities and residential houses for the autumn-winter
season were discussed at the meeting.

The issues of constructing
accessible housing, further improving the activity of communal services,
carrying out beautification and greenery works were also considered.

On the same day, Acting President of
our country visited Khorezm region.

Shavkat Mirziyoyev evaluated the
projects of high-rise residential houses, construction of which are planned in
the next few years in Urgench. The issues of building accessible housing for
low-income families in rural areas were considered.

In Kushkipir district of the region
Shavkat Mirziyoyev assessed the agricultural works, discussed the issues of
raising productivity of lands, rational utilization of water resources with
farmers.

The meeting with representatives of
the Khorezm region started with a minute of silence in tribute to the memory of
the First President of the Republic of Uzbekistan Islam Karimov.

The issues of a social-economic
development of the region, increasing its export potential, organization of new
prospective industrial enterprises, further improving of social infrastructure
were discussed at the meeting.

A special attention was paid to the
practical issues of preparing agricultural products, preparing the residential
houses and institutions of the social sphere to autumn-winter season, ensuring
smooth operation of the industry and other spheres of region’s economy.

The system is currently introduced
in Bukhara, Jizzakh and Samarkand regions. Uzbekistan signed a contract for its
establishment with the South Korean company KT Corporation as a result of
international tendering.

According to the project manager Inh Ki Kim, it is very important in
terms of development and promotion of technologies of intelligent electrical
networks in Uzbekistan. That will provide an opportunity of introducing
specific tariffs based on a day time. The multi-tariff accounting should enable
Uzbekenergo to regulate the consumption of electricity during the day, while
smoothing the load chart.

Works on the installation of server equipment and meters are currently
underway in the pilot areas. Uzbekenergo is planning to install more than one
million multipurpose meters at a voltage of 0.4 kV in household, commercial and
industrial customers in three regions by the end of 2017.

According to experts, the metering should facilitate timely, accurate
and transparent calculations, improve quality of customer service, ensure
prompt response to failures and address many other issues.

In the next few years, Uzbekistan has scheduled to install 6 million
up-to-date meters throughout the country, as well as create a unified billing
system and a consumer data base through the loan funds of the Asian, World and
the Islamic Development Banks. The total cost of the project exceeds $800
million.

The Acting President of the Republic of Uzbekistan Shavkat Mirziyoyev
expressed sincere condolences to the Heads of the State of Israel – to the President Reuven Rivlin
and to the Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu due to the death of prominent
Israeli statesman and public figure, former President Shimon Peres and he
conveyed the words of sympathy and support to his families and relatives.

The National Program for Personnel
Training adopted 19 years ago and large-scale work carried out in this sphere
have radically changed not only the system of education and upbringing but also
the entire life of our society and laid down the foundation, in a positive
sense, of an “explosion effect”.

A Unique System

For almost five years already graduates of the ninth form have been
continuing their education at professional colleges and academic lyceums. What
is noteworthy is that almost 10% of graduates of secondary special and
professional institutions enroll to higher educational institutions annually.

Millions of children today get education and are brought up at newly
built and overhauled educational establishments – at almost 10,000 schools,
1,556 lyceums and colleges and more than 70 higher educational institutions.
Based on the new educational system they master modern professions and thanks
to it find a worthy place in life, thus vividly manifesting the efficiency of
educational model of Uzbekistan and its competitiveness on the international
arena.

The national model of education is unique in that it provides an
opportunity for everyone to get a professional education. Time will pass and a
unique situation will take shape in Uzbekistan’s labor market, when everyone
will become a professional specialist.

At the initial stage of the implementation of the National Program for
Personnel Training it was necessary to build, renovate and furnish the required
number of schools, professional colleges and academic lyceums in order to
ensure the functioning of a compulsory 12-year educational system guaranteed by
the government. The state, the principal reformer on the issues of improving
the system of education – continuous perfection of the quality of education,
modernization of the educational process for training specialists meeting the
demand of the labor market – faces new tasks today.

New mechanisms have been launched today headed by special funds under
the Ministry of Finance, which secure the consolidation of the
material-technical bases of educational institutions at all levels. A
particularly important place in this process belongs to the solution of
problems related to raising the teachers’ qualification level, since only those
teachers and mentors , who continuously strive for self-improvement, are able
to raise the level of their knowledge and qualification, feel the heartbeat of
the time and capable to bring up comprehensively developed and mature personalities.

The system of re-training and qualification improvement of teachers and
the faculty of all educational institutions has been revised in recent years.
They are provided with additional conditions for mastering computer
technologies and foreign languages. The methodological support of the
educational process has been raised to a qualitatively new level. For example,
methodical guidelines for teachers have been printed out at schools as
supplements to text books.

Improvement of the system of studying foreign languages and
information-communication technologies has turned into the main direction in
the activity of the entire educational system, so that every graduate complied
with the requirements of the time, become a qualified specialist, mastered a foreign
language and improved his/her computer skills.

Education from the Cradle

Special attention is paid to pre-school education. ‘The Concept of
Pre-School education in the Republic of Uzbekistan’ was adopted in 2008, and it
reflects the founding factors, goals and objectives of renovating this sphere
of activity: shaping of a child as a personality is a priority task among them
all.

Systemic and stage-by-stage activities on the construction and
reconstruction of kindergartens, their provision with didactic materials, toys
and sports inventory have been put on rail for its implementation. They are
financed on account of the State and local budgets. For instance, 3 billion
soums were allocated annually in 2010-2015 for fitting out 4916 establishments
where about 668,000 boys and girls were trained. Non-governmental
kindergartens, the number of which reached 132, have started their operation;
they are attended by nearly 4,500 children.

Children of pre-school age enjoy the services of free calisthenics,
chess and other circles, the circles of foreign languages, early professional
orientation, and much more. They study the national cultural heritage and
traditions in the offices of spirituality, libraries and museums under the
kindergartens.

The number of educators with a higher education alone increased almost
threefold from 2011 till 2016. A system of continuous qualification improvement
and introduction of the modern methods of work have been set up for them.

Groups of short-term pre-school detention were set up two years ago for
creation of conveniences for young families and expanding the coverage of
children with non-formal education. Experienced pedagogues help children to get
prepared for school. More than 53,000 children currently attend 2,000 such groups.

Five illustrated manuals on the “Bolajon” support program have been
published for parents of children who do not attend kindergartens. They will
help hundreds of thousands of families to develop their five or six year old
sons and daughters speaking, math and other skills. All this will help bring up
the pre-school training of the younger generation to a qualitatively new level.

School Education

Schools were built and overhauled in 1991-2003 in all the regions of the
country, which are attended by 1,893 thousand schoolchildren, and kindergartens
for 152,800 places. Then, in 2004-2009, followed the implementation of the
nationwide State program of development of school education. 351 new school
buildings were erected, 2,470 - renovated, 3,608 - repaired, 2,069 -
refurbished. From 2010 to the present day the renovation has affected 2,226
schools. Overall, 2.9 trillion soums (currency
rates of CB RU from 30.09.2016, 1$= 3010.20 soums) have been allocated for
these purposes.

Another 1.9 trillion soums was channeled into the consolidation of the
material-technical base, fitting out each and every institution with laboratory
equipment and technology. As a result increased the level of equipment of
classes with necessary facilities, and physics, chemistry, and biology offices
were fitted out with laboratory equipment; thus the equipment level reached
78-88% on the average compared with 2004. Another example: at the time 14% of
schools possessed computers, now this indicator is equal to 81.5% and the
number continues to grow.

The content of the training programs has also changed. This was preceded
by a tremendous work with the involvement of leading educators and researchers.
Back in 1999, Uzbekistan was one of the first among CIS countries, which
introduced new state educational standards. Much has been done to ensure
interconnection of the curricula at schools, colleges and lyceums with
consideration of the specific subjects’ significance, age and
psycho-physiological characteristics of children. New projects on state
educational standards and programs on 18 academic disciplines have been
recently elaborated and launched within the framework of their further
modernization. They are now being tested at institutions of general and
specialized secondary and vocational education.

Changes have been reflected in the new generation of text-books, to
publication of which the government pays special attention. In 1991, the level
of availability of text-books made up 55.4%, while today it has grown up to
100%. 234.2 billion soums has been allocated for publication of millions of
books of 1,958 titles in recent five years alone. These include seven
methodical aids with multimedia applications with the help of which the primary
school teachers will be able to more actively apply advanced pedagogical and
information technologies. More than 500 electronic books, video and audio
lessons, interactive animation and virtual labs, tests, and educational games
were worked out and introduced into the school curricula and more than three dozens
of IT systems and services had also been put into practice and already proved
their effectiveness.

The successful reforms have helped to noticeably raise the recognition
of the pedagogues’ profession. The Day of Teachers and Mentors was instituted at
the proposal of the first President of Uzbekistan, the system of payment for
their work was improved, and various contests and reviewes organized on a
regular basis. The share of teachers with the higher education has grown up
from 68.4% up to 81.7% during the last twelve years.

Country of Talent

Identification and comprehensive development of talent is a priority
direction of development for the government. This tendency is promoted by the
activities of numerous establishments of supplementary education. To be more
specific, the government had implemented the State program for consolidation of
material-technical basis and further improvement of the activities of
children’s Schools of music and Arts for the years 2009-2014, while currently
it realizes the Stat Program on the further improvement of the activities of
children’s Schools of music and arts for the years 2016-2020. Up until now the
capital renovation project has touched upon 301 specialized institutions, as
well as three academic lyceums. For example, eight years ago almost half of
schools were housed in old premises and now they are accommodated in modern
buildings. They received modern equipment, furniture and special technology, 48
types of aids, music collections, and disks with the works of domestic and
foreign composers, as well as visual materials. Thanks to newly created
conditions the number of children attending the Schools of music and arts, has
grown more than one a half times over since 2008.

A new network of “Barkamol avlod” children’s centers network has taken
shape during this period. There are 211 modern establishments operating in the
country with 5 thousand circles specializing in the arts and technical
creativity, ecology and regional studies. They are attended by almost 114,000
boys and girls, and another 3 million children attend 150,000 circles operating
under their schools.

The activity of the Children’s Sports Development Fund, established on
the initiative of the first President of Uzbekistan Islam Karimov, serves the
cause of disseminating the active way of life. Prior to the country’s
acquisition of its independence the specialized facilities within the system of
public education could be counted on the fingers of one hand, while currently
their number stands at 2,178. A unified system of a three-stage “Umid
nihollari”, “Barkamol avlod” and “Universiade” mass competitions have been set
up in the country, which attracted the attention of many foreign specialists.
As a result, the number of young athletes during the period from 2003 and 2016
has increased from 20.4% up to 57.2% of the total number of children. Moreover,
the number of girls athletes has grown up from 16.4% up to 46.9%.

All this contributes to the fact that our children more and more loudly
declare about themselves on the international arena. Less than one month ago
the national team of our country won the second place at the International
mathematics contest in Thailand. Pupils of the seventh form Eldor Neimatov and
Shakhboz Khasanov from Bukhara and Qashqadaryo regions joined the ranks of the
contest laureates. This current year has been no less productive. Our school
children won two bronze medals, two certificates of honor and the TIMC Cup at
the Thailand International Mathematics Competition. The young residents of the
capital city Javokhir and Islombek Sinarovs won gold and bronze medals at the
10th World championship among school children in Brazil. This year they have
been recognized as the absolute leaders in their respective age groups at the
Uzbekistan championship. Izzatilla Toshkenboyev, Mukhlisa Alisherova and our
other young talent won three first places, four – second places and two third
places at the prestigious 13th “Citta di Barletta” international musical
contest and the 26th World contest of “Citta di Barletta” contest. There are
dozens of other children, who worthily represent Uzbekistan at the most
authoritative competitions.

Students of secondary special and professional institutions demonstrate
no less significant results. Our representatives came back from the
International Olympiad in chemistry with one silver and two bronze medals; and
with one bronze medal from the International Olympiad in mathematics, and
proclaimed themselves as worthy contesters at international Olympiads in physics,
informatics and biology.

Profession for Everyone

About 300 institutions of secondary special and professional education
have undergone overhaul and reconstruction in a planned manner completed by the
beginning of the new academic year. Quality of training is also undergoing a
radical change. A large-scale work on the introduction of advanced pedagogical
technologies facilitates in students the development of skills in conducting
independent research activities.

Priority is given to training workshops. Work on their construction and
fitting them out with equipment has practically been completed. In the past,
they had no adequate conditions for inculcating practical skills in students.
Modern training workshops are fitted out with the latest production-educational
equipment. Production of goods and provision of services to the population have
been organized at many colleges’ workshop facilities with the objective of
improving the training of specialists.

The status of vocational training foremen has been brought up to a
significant level. Their salaries today are raised to the level of teachers.
These measures have been undertaken so that foremen of production education,
who do not have pedagogical education, could go though relevant training. This
allowed improving several fold the quality of conducting lessons in educational
workshops.

Also has been resolved the issue of the workshop software consumables.

At the Highest Level

The Program of modernization of material-technical base of higher
educational institutions and radical improvement of the quality of training
specialists for 2011-2016 was approved five years ago. It had turned into an
important document, which specified the ways for further realization of the
National Program in training personnel.

The volumes of construction and overhaul work had been significantly
expanded. Initially it was planned to reconstruct and overhaul 11 higher
educational institutions on account of the Fund for development of
material-technical base of universities. However, after the adoption of the
Program on the improvement of the system of studying foreign languages the list
was replenished with the Uzbek State University of World Languages. After
setting up the Tashkent State Dental Institute the construction of new facilities
for the new higher educational institution had also been turned into one of the
Fund’s tasks.

Great attention in the realization of the Program was attached to
further consolidation of the material-technical base of educational
laboratories, creation of scientific-research labs and integration of
education, science and practice. Moreover, a teacher had always remained in the
focus of attention.

The system of re-training and raising the qualification level of
teachers on the basis of foreign specialists’ experiences was revised with the
objective to raise the level of higher education to the level of leading
foreign universities and institutes. Training plans and programs in priority
directions for re-training and qualification improvement of management,
administrative and pedagogical personnel were elaborated jointly with those
specialists. 15 teachers from the Republic of Korea, Italy, Austria, Japan,
USA, Spain, France and other countries were invited to the positions of deputy
directors of the Branch Centers under the higher educational institutions.

Scientific Approach

Transition to a one-stage system of training highly qualified personnel
promoted the consolidation of the role of post graduates (Masters) in training
scientific and scientific-pedagogical personnel. It predetermined the
introduction of additional complex of measures on the further improvement of
post-graduate courses’ curricular and approaches to training, which had taken
shape as an important stage for preparing the youth to conduct scientific
research work.

The competitive selection of those willing to continue their education
at the institute of senior fellow-researchers and applicants for a PhD was
revised. Today matters not only future scientists’ knowledge, but also their overall
outlook, knowledge of history and knowledge of foreign languages.

Training at the post graduate courses and at the institutes of senior
fellow-researchers is fully directed at preparing the youths and girls for
carrying out scientific-pedagogical activities. The load on post-graduate
courses faculty was reduced and the students were provided access to the best
laboratories for conducting independent research work. And starting from the
last year the Committee on Coordination and Development of Science had even
begun to award grants to senior research personnel of Regional Centers for
training highly qualified personnel so that they could conduct research work at
the leading laboratories of the country.

This has not been done by accident, since today, before defending their
doctoral dissertations the post graduates should present the Commission the
written evidence on the implementation of a scientific development into
practice. And the newly created conditions enable the future young scientists
to focus on and prepare competitive research paperes.

25 years ago, Uzbekistan has
selected an independent road of development and launched a whole series of
up-to-date reforms and socio-economic reorganization processes, while strictly
observing the national interests, requirements, mentality, customs and
traditions of the Republic’s population. The former principles and methods of
economic management, which failed to prove their value, have undergone
root-and-branch changes.

“In order to efficiently operate in today’s market environment,
well-trained, high-calibre specialists are needed, who are good at orientating
themselves in market relationships as well as at implementing the national
economic policy” – this idea was emphasized in the Uzbek leader’s book
“Uzbekistan on the Threshold of Independence”. – “We need a mechanism to
cherry-pick and stimulate gifted young people…The indigenous higher educational
establishments should train specialists in such areas as international economic
relations, international marketing, currency-related issues, foreign economic
activity and management”.

Personnel, especially their young and talented representatives, constitute
not only the basic and invaluable capital of society, but also the latter’s
bearing. In the Uzbek leader’s words, whatever tasks and problems we have to
tackle finally turn on personnel. That’s why the formation of the country’s
personnel potential is viewed as one of the priority objectives that are put
high on the economic agenda. This objective is addressed in conformity with the
Law of the Republic of Uzbekistan, “On education” and the National Program of
Personnel Training. Both documents are fundamental, specifying the main types
of education in the country:

Pre-school education;

General secondary education;

Specialized (vocational) secondary education;

Higher education;

Extra-mural education;

Raising the level of professional skills and re-training of personnel;

Educational activities in out-of-school hours.

The approval and successful realization of this Program has ensured the
fundamental transformation of national education, with its complete
liberalization of former dogmata and ideologies. In terms of its significance,
the personnel training system has been lifted to the level of the world’s
developed states, meeting all the requirements of high professionalism,
morality, spirituality, culture etc. And above all, domestic specialists have
no longer been trained on a gross basis, i.e. the greater the number of trained
specialists, the better it is for the national economy. The new system of
personnel training takes into consideration the interests and needs of the
market economy. Both the balanced calculations of parameters for admittance to
higher educational establishments and employer demand for their graduates are
accomplished on the basis of the Uzbek economy’s actual provision with
university-degree specialists, as required by the Presidential Decree, “On
measures to further improve the mechanism designed to form parameters of
admittance to the Republic’s higher educational establishments”. It is
proceeding from these calculations that the government determines appropriate
admittance quotas for bachelors and masters. For instance, a quota for the
2016-2017 academic year is fixed at almost 58,000 bachelors and 5,000 masters.

To train specialists for the Uzbek economy, the indigenous institutes of
higher education these days have everything at their disposal - from all sorts
of modern textbooks, educational supplies, visual aids and curricula to
classrooms outfitted with computers, excellently equipped laboratories,
libraries, sports grounds and gymnasia etc. The Tashkent State University, as
one example, which is considered to be a forge of economic experts in the
Republic, is home to a number of centers – for information-resource,
information technology, economic research, creative initiatives and many
others. Students are trained in keeping with the state educational standards,
which represent a system of major parameters that measure the highest levels of
education and professional qualification. The educational standards under
discussion make it possible to maintain their stability, reproduction and
perfection in correspondence with today’s requirements and the prospects of the
nation’s socio-economic development at large.

For the time being, the Uzbek economy needs not just lots of personnel,
but highly qualified specialists, who are capable of applying in practice their
knowledge obtained at institutes of higher education as well as of solving a
variety of production and economic tasks in the most efficient manner.
Newly-graduated economists are required to have a good command of economic
foundations of production, engineering and technology, while young engineers
should know the basic principles of economy. Training such versatile
high-calibre cadres allows the indigenous higher educational establishments to
ensure that their graduates will get prestigious jobs, because their knowledge
will be much in demand, both countrywide and abroad.

As numerous observations and careful analysis show, there are no
students who don’t want to become good specialists, to make their career and to
occupy a deserved place in society. But in practice, just a desire is not
enough to achieve all these purposes. And here, much depends not on a student
himself, although it is priority thing, but also on those who teach them, i.e.
the professor-teaching staff. The latter should not only deliver instructive
lectures and conduct interesting seminars and laboratory works. They must also
impart practical and business skills to their students, as well as cultivate in
them such features and qualities as personal responsibility, patriotism and
cultural, political and national values. It is common knowledge that
enterprises using obsolete equipment and technology cannot turn out high
quality competitive produce. The same is true for education and personnel
training. For lecturers to be generally sought after, they should not rest on
their former laurels. Rather, they must constantly work hard, honing their
theoretical and practical skills and perfecting their pedagogic mastery. The
following Presidential Decrees also accentuate this requirement: “On the
further improvement of the training and attestation system for research and
research-pedagogical personnel of higher qualification” and “On measures to
further improve the system of retraining and upgrade training for administrative
and pedagogical personnel of higher educational establishments”. All these and
other measures are a logical continuation of the large-scale reforms undertaken
on all stages of the national education system after Uzbekistan gained
independence.

At present, 60-plus institutes of higher education and universities
function in the Republic. They are seeking to improve the way they teach
students, in an effort to occupy a deserved position in the global education
space. The quality of personnel training, combined with guarantees of finding
good jobs after graduation, is
increasingly forming a major standard of performance for all higher educational
establishments all over Uzbekistan.

Life, however, doesn’t stand still, and new requirements are regularly
imposed on domestic universities, including their teaching staff. Some of them
are specified in the Presidential Resolution, “On admittance to higher
educational establishments of the Republic of Uzbekistan in the period
2016-2017” dated 26th May 2016. This remarkable document stipulates the full
rejection of outdated approaches and teaching methods, as well as the
introduction at institutes of higher education of new curricula and plans based
on the latest scientific achievements and advanced pedagogical technologies. In
an effort to improve the quality of personnel training in the field of higher
education, the document in question recommends to enlist cooperation of some
leading scientists and lecturers, basically on fundamental and technical subjects.

One of the most vital ingredients of a given Presidential Resolution is
the requirement to take into consideration, when estimating their performance,
the teaching staff’s command of foreign languages and the application of modern
pedagogical, multi-media and information-communicative technologies in the
teaching process. Starting 1st July of the current year, retraining and upgrade
training of administrative and teaching staff of higher educational
establishments should be organized in 15 basic centers set up at the Republic’s
universities in keeping with the June 12, 2015 Presidential Decree.
Professional skills of professors and lecturers should be raised with the aid
of new curricula and progressive teaching methods, with cooperation of the
world’s leading university researchers and professors being enlisted for these
purposes without fail.

In that way, the activities of higher educational establishments in the
key areas of personnel training is coming to the fore. To reiterate, highly
qualified specialists can be trained only by excellent, erudite, well-versed
and competent lecturers with doctorates in various subjects, professors and
university readers. In the last few years, many of them have retired, leading,
on the one hand, to the natural “rejuvenation” of the country’s university
teaching staff, and to a tangible reduction in the number of teachers with
academic degrees, on the other. This, in turn, has affected and goes on
affecting both the organization and the quality of research work aimed at preparing
and defending theses by young lecturers. So the formation of highly qualified
specialists with academic degrees should be placed high on the agenda by
indigenous universities.

Since the acquisition of independence, the Republic of Uzbekistan has been
successfully putting into practice the following concept: “From a strong state
to a strong civil society”. The state is seeking to reduce its presence in the
national economy, giving its citizens an opportunity to organize and manage not
only their own lives, but also the development of society as a whole. Such an
environment supposes an immense rise in both the role and significance of
modern personnel capable of addressing any problems and tasks of economic
construction that will intensify the country’s production and economic
potentialities, catapulting it to the level of the world’s developed nations.

Over 100 athletes from ten countries strutted their stuff in the
competitions organized by the Ministry of Culture and Sports Affairs, the
National Olympic Committee and the Swimming Federation of Uzbekistan.

The female athletes competed in
solo, duet and group events in three age categories: 16-18, 13-15,12 and below.

The solo winner is Ziyoda
Toshkhujayeva from Tashkent. In duet, the winner is the pair Anastasiya
Ruzmetova and Gulsanam Yuldasneva. In group events, the winning teams are from
Tashkent city and Andijan and Bukhara regions.

Other prize winners are athletes
from Belarus, Hungary, Israel, North Korea, Russia, Slovakia and Ukraine.